


Catfishing Snapshots

by KivaEmber



Series: Wine Cellar [52]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Amnesia, Childhood, Companion Piece, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, Male Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Multi, One Shot Collection, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 19:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: A collection of oneshots and drabbles that don't fit into the main Catfishing fic itself





	1. Awakening - 14th

The realisation dawned when he was about seven. 

It was like rousing from a mindless stupor, the mental cobwebs dropping away as he stood up to his knees in freezing cold water, his toes numb in his sodden boots, and with no idea where he was. Dark trees loomed high over him, the thick snow muffling every noise except the birdsongs in the branches above. From what little he could see if the sky, it was daytime. 

Prometheus stood in the middle of that shallow, half-frozen creek and thought:  _ what the fuck.  _

* * *

It turned out the body- no,  _ him _ \- sort of? - the  _ child who is currently him _ \- went for a little mischievous wander in the woods and got lost. 

Typical. 

Xaiaxu clogged his thoughts weirdly- in that, Xaiaxu was  _ him, _ so all the emotions and thoughts sprung forth from  _ him, _ but, it was like- in an altered mental state? It was all strange and warped, and it made Prometheus’s head hurt when he tried to untangle what thoughts came from  _ him _ and what came from  _ him-him, _ so he just. Stopped. 

Lost in the woods. Focus on that. 

Xaiaxu stepped out of the creek, flexing his toes in his wet boots to try and get circulation going again as he observed his surroundings. Everything loomed high over him, even the bank of the creek had taken some effort for his short, little legs. So small. He was a child?

Well, yeah, he was  _ seven. _

That’s. Like a  _ baby. _

Well, obviously not, since he was independent enough to go wandering about the woods, apparently. But still, seven.  _ Single digits. _ Complete baby. 

Prometheus’s head hurt. What was happening…? 

Xaiaxu stamped his feet a few times, refocusing on the task at hand. Aside from being wet to his knees, everything else was dry, so he didn’t have to worry too much about hypothermia. Frostbite, maybe, for his poor little baby toes. Should he go barefooted instead?

He eyed the frozen ground at his feet. The snow was a few inches -  _ ilms _ \- and the ground was thick with broken twigs, dead leaves and other sharp, pointy things. He doubted his soles would be tough enough to deal with that, so… wet boots stay on. 

“Where… did I come from?” he murmured, and startled at his voice. So… high and squeaky. He clutched at his throat, the material of his bright red mittens soft against his skin, and pressed his lips firmly together. That… wasn’t his voice at all. 

Well, it was  _ now. _ But. But… 

Xaiaxu exhaled shakily, lowering his hands and stuffing them under his armpits instead. He could see tiny footprints - his - leading towards the creek. He followed them under the dark shadow of the woods, back where they came from. 

He didn’t walk long. 

A few minutes, and he heard a voice. A familiar one. One that sparked a mix of relief and dread in equal measure, of - familiar feeling, like when he did something wrong and Mentor Metis was going to swoop down on him with a well-meaning lecture on her lips. But, Mentor Metis was long dead -  _ he _ was long dead, wasn’t he? 

He  _ died. He  _ **_died_**. **_He died!_**

The memory bubbled up. All rotting and black, like a corpse surging up from foul water. Of- of- of- the sky burning red, and-  _ Hades _ and, Zodiark, and, the Light, bright, bursting, infection and-  _ pain,  _ blooming between his temples intense enough that his vision went sideways wonky inverted white

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ “Xaiaxu!” _

Prometheus jolted, blinking at his hands buried deep in the snow. He was on his knees, shivering, a dull ache thumping behind his eyes. His chest hurt like he had heartburn. 

What was he…?

His thoughts swirled woozily. He vaguely remembered ‘waking up’ at the creek and wandering and… something? A big black space yawned up between his groggy thoughts, so he exhaustedly stopped thinking. It probably didn’t matter, whatever it was.

“Xaiaxu!”

Mom’s voice.

Wait, what?

“There you are!” Strong, familiar hands, rough with callouses of years of hunting and chopping wood, grabbed him and picked him up out of the snow. His startled squeak was muffled in a furry hide- no, pelt? It took a few seconds for his scrambled brain to realise someone was hugging him tight and his face was actually pressed into a very furry collar, not some wild animal’s hide.

“Oh, thank  _ Menphina _ you’re safe!” His captor- Mom- gasped. She sounded close to tears, aggressively nuzzling his hair and ear, “You silly, silly boy!”

Prometheus stayed frozen, too bewildered. Xaiaxu wanted to hug back. He was confused, and a little frightened, and wanted the comfort from his mother. Prometheus was too confused and terrified to reciprocate, and wanted comfort from someone else entirely. His body didn’t know what to do. Who to listen to. 

His stillness worried the wom- Mom. Her grip loosened, enough that his little feet could touch the floor again, her large, worn hands heavy on his shoulders as she peered at him. She looked- like a Mithra-Human hybrid? Dark hair, a little curly, with pointy, tufted ears of a feline. Her eyes were such a bright gold, pupils large and round in the dimness of the woods. Prometheus stared dazedly at them. 

“Xaiaxu? Kitten?” she asked worriedly, tenderly touching his forehead with the back of her hand, “Are you feeling okay?”

“...” Prometheus opened his mouth and tried to talk. Nothing came out but a strangled, tinny noise. 

Mom started to look alarmed, “Xu?”

Finally, both sides of him hit on a reaction both agreed with. 

He burst into tears. 


	2. Grief - 14th

Manual labour was gross. 

Prometheus, who had only indulged in it before as a kind of ‘how quaint!’ activity back in Amaurot, was slowly beginning to realise how exhausting, dull and  _ soul destroying _ it was. His protection as being a baby was slowly being eroded, as his ‘mother’ decided to teach him how to be self-sufficient… at ten years old! Ten! 

This species matured quickly! It was a little daunting, really, because… 

Prometheus  _ sucked _ at manual labour, and that was not a good thing. 

“Not quite right, little kitten,” Sehji said gently, “You need to make sure not to cut too deeply, otherwise you nick the guts and taint the meat. See?”

Prometheus saw, because he currently had the mess all over his hands and on his lap. The rabbit corpse he’d been mutilating was half-skinned and gutted. Sehji had taught him that to skin, you basically ‘unclothed’ the rabbit, making small incisions on the inside of its limbs and along its belly to peel the hide off. It was bloody, awful work, especially if you messed up the gutting and…

Oh, it  _ stank. _ It felt  _ slimy. _ It was so- it was  _ not _ like cutting pre-packaged meat ready for cooking. It was like doing his dissection lessons back in the Akadaemia all over again, the ones where he got scolded for throwing up on the professor’s shoes because he discovered he had a weak stomach for dissected corpses, who knew? 

It seemed he hadn’t shaken that off during his reincarnation. Thankfully, Sehji attributed his hesitance and pale-face to inexperienced youth, and was very gentle and understanding the first few times he had retched at the smell of spilled guts. 

“Why don’t we set that aside for the traps later,” Sehji said consolingly, removing the ruined rabbit corpse from few, “And watch me again. Or is that enough for you today?”

It had been enough an hour ago, but... “I can keep going.”

Sehji tutted, “You clearly can’t.”

Prometheus hesitated, but Sehji was already waving him off.

“Go wash up in the creek, kitten,” she said, “I’ll deal with the rest of this. Remember to go inside after you’re clean, okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” he said dutifully, getting to his feet and quickly walking towards the little creek that ran alongside their cabin. It was still in view of Sehji, and he squatted down next to the shallow, clear-running water, dipping his hands into it to scrub the blood off. 

It clung stubbornly under his nails, though. A rusty brown that turned stark red when wet, and he watched the reddish swirls get carried away by the creek, not quite sure what he was feeling. Back in Amaurot, they used magic to make very clean dissections and dismembering, and Prometheus’s combative spells tended to completely vaporise their victims, so seeing the filthy, stinking aftermath of real death was… 

Weird, and upsetting. The last time he saw that type of death had been Amaurot. At the end. 

Prometheus dug his fingernails into his hand, until it broke the skin, the sharp bite of pain keeping his thoughts off  _ those. _ Memories of broken bodies in burning streets, messy deaths, stench of burning flesh and fabric melted into skin and-

He splashed his face with water. It was freezing cold and stung his eyes, but it helped. It helped a lot. 

Amaurot was long gone, from what he’d gathered. Sehji had never heard of it, what little books he had read never mentioned it, and instead spoke about strange places called ‘Eorzea’ or ‘Dalmasca’ or ‘Garlemald’. No soul answered him when he reached out into the aether, and the lifestream currents were all wrong and out of place. He had no idea how long its been since Amaurot fell, if it ever came back, if… if he was the only one who… 

He didn’t want to remember it as a burning husk piled high with bodies and ravenous monsters, but it was the only thing his mind kept snagging on recently. Had he succeeded in the end? He must’ve, if the world still stood, free of Zodiark and Terminus’s taint. He must’ve succeeded. 

Prometheus watched his foreign reflection wobble in the rushing water of the creek, droplets dripping off his cheeks. He must’ve succeeded. He had to believe that. 

“Kitten?” Sehji’s voice filtered in, “Are you alright there?”

“...” Prometheus took in a breath, stuffing all that- that  _ irrelevant _ stuff down, and hopped to his feet with all the vigor of a ten year old Miqo’te, “Yup! I was just watching out for fish!”

“You know that creek’s too shallow for fish,” Sehji said fondly, “Now, go back inside to warm up. You’re looking a little cold, sweetie.” 

Prometheus nodded, because he was a good son, and obediently scurried into their cabin. It was small, tiny, but warm and theirs. It was also so vastly different to anything Amaurot that he found it comforting in its alienness. He didn’t want to remember what no longer was, or dwell on the empty, gaping hole in his soul where another should be. 

He faltered as he took off his boots, the sudden upsurge of painful grief almost choking him. Hades, he thought, and he had to close his eyes and bite his bottom lip, until that awful, clenching, empty pain eased into something less fatal. It still hurt. It hurt so much. It hurt. 

_ I miss it, _ he thought, blinking back tears as he carefully set his boots down next to the door,  _ I miss it. I miss him. I miss Hythlodaeus. I miss home. I want home. I want it. I want it back. I want it all back.  _

But it no longer existed, and he had to accept that. 

He took advantage of his brief solitude to wipe at his wet cheeks, sniffling through his short breaths as he tottered into the living room. The hearth was stone cold, but there was a thick, furry blanket set in front of it. Prometheus lied down on it and rolled until he was a tight little burrito, his cheek pressed into musty smelling fur.

If he closed his eyes and imagined hard enough, he could pretend he was back in his bed in Amaurot. 

But he didn’t do that. He was trying to stop doing that. It was like poking a scabbing wound. Just delayed the process and eventually infected it. He had to forget. Forget and move on. He wasn’t Prometheus anymore. He was Xaiaxu, and remembering who he was before was just the height of cruelty on life’s part. 

Really, really cruel. 

It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s gone. It’s gone! You’ve won! You must’ve! So stop thinking about it! Forever and ever, forget! 

Forget.

Yet, despite his attempts, he never really could. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have skinned rabbits and chickens before and let me tell you it is smelly dirty work and the guts STINK SO BAD it can make you retch if you're unprepared/inexperienced (even worse if you accidentally nick the guts...)

**Author's Note:**

> these are just little oneshots and drabbles that can't fit into Catfishing itself, so have these instead. open to suggestions and prompts and what not, so long as they're not 'present day' or be too spoilery for the main Catfishing fic


End file.
